


The Most Dangerous Game

by otatop



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Attempted Rape/Non-Con, Gen, Hurt Stiles, Kidnapping, Literary References, M/M, Panic Attacks, Rape/Non-con Elements, Tiny bit of Sterek, Violence, bonding under duress, eventual were!stiles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-25
Updated: 2013-12-25
Packaged: 2018-01-06 03:50:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1102061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/otatop/pseuds/otatop
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He was going to die. Probably. Stiles was probably going to die...</p><p> </p><p>In which Stiles gets kidnapped an there's more to it than just escaping.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Most Dangerous Game

**Author's Note:**

  * For [JoulesIsIronic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/JoulesIsIronic/gifts).



> Please, please, please pay attention to the tags. I will put more information about them at the end notes.  
> grievously unbeta'd  
> Merry Christmas Julie!
> 
> (please let me know if you'd like me to add more tags, i sometimes tend to be forgetful with them)

He woke up in a cage.

It wasn’t the first thing he noticed, but it was the most important. This was definitely a cage, barely four feet by four feet. His head was pillowed uncomfortably between two of the rusted metal bars, the scratch of them against his skull almost as painful as his inability to stretch. He felt like he’d slept in the recliner for a week. And who knew, maybe he’d done something equally as painful given how his neck was screaming at him. There was no way to know how long he’d been in that one position, no way to know how long he’d been in the cage, how long it’d been since… since… since when?

Where had he been before the cage? How had he ended up there? Stiles tried to think past the haze of his headache, back to last night or last week or whenever. Nothing came to mind, not one single memory stuck out as his last night home (if he’d even been taken from there). He could remember everything about himself, about his dad and Scott and his furry little problem. He knew he was a freshman in college and he knew he had a test on the twenty-ninth. He knew that Isaac had gotten an internship in southern Oregon and his being so far away was turning Derek into an even clingier asshole than usual. He knew that there hadn’t been any serious supernatural shit to go down in a couple months.

Was that it then? Was this the universes’ retribution for holding out for so long? Yea, well, great. That’s just fucking great.

Fuck all.

Stiles sat up as much as he could to allow room for his legs to stretch out in front of him. After a few moments of popping joints and rubbing his muscles, he moved again to allow for different parts of his body to straighten out and release from their locked states. His hips were the worst, the most awkward to stretch out in the small space and the ones that had taken the brunt of his weight. As he wiggled around, he took stock of himself. Bruising was minimum but his stomach felt so empty that he wanted to eat three cheeseburgers but throw up at the same time. He didn’t feel _weak_ though so it couldn’t be much more than a day since he’d last eaten. All in all, he wasn’t in terrible shape for being locked up in a tiny cell.

Outside the cage, his wellbeing wasn’t quite so sure. Whatever kind of room his cage was in, it was dark and windowless, lacking in light in ways only deep, natural caves could really achieve. Reaching his arm out did little to help him figure out where he was. The ground was either dirty or actual _dirt_. He couldn’t feel anything but the ground on any side of the cage. Nothing above him, either. The pitch blackness confused his senses, made a shiver of panic zap up his spine and settle in his chest. He could be in a cave or a basement. Hell, he could be on a dirt platform hundreds of feet in the air on some weird alien planet waiting to be picked up and experimented on. 

Hey, weird things happened, ok? He wasn’t about to knock extraterrestrial experimentation.

Although he always imagined aliens would be a bit cleaner than this.

Wherever he was, it smelled like petrichor and was eerily silent. There might be water droplets somewhere, but they weren’t distinct enough for him to rule out his imagination. After what seemed like endless waiting and watching and listening, Stiles shouted out into the void. His echo stretched out, bouncing around until it became nothing. Cave it was, then. A big ole, cave. With a cage. That he happened to be in. with no sign of any other people around. Awesome.

“Are you _stupid_?”

“ _Jesus fuck_ ,” Stiles startled so hard his head knocked against the bars above him. He recovered quickly, his confusion and alarm rocketing his adrenaline and making this far easier to deal with than it should be. He turned toward where he thought the voice was coming, a girl, not much older than him, with an accent he couldn’t recognize.

“Keep it down, you don’t want them to come back before it’s time,” the girl said. Stiles reached out that side of his cage again in hopes of- of _something_. He needed more than a disembodied voice.

“Before what time? Who are _they_?” He kept his voice low, heeding her warning because she sounded just as scared as him.

“They’re _freaks_ is what,” said a man from farther away. “Get off on kidnapping people, sick fucks.”

“Shut it, Jeremy,” the girl hissed with an exasperated sound. “Man, kid, I hope you’re more intelligent than this one here.” Jeremy grumbled but didn’t argue. “I’m Sara.”

“Stiles,” he offered. He knew he should be panicking more than he was, but the calm, almost sing-song quality of Sara’s voice and even tone kept him from snapping more questions.

Sara gave a quiet laugh. “You’ve got a funny name, Stiles.”

“You’ve got a funny accent.”

She laughed again. “Fair enough. Listen here, Stiles, we know about as much as you here. I’ve see a woman and three men come in here. I don’t… I don’t know what… there’s something not right about them.” Sara got right to the point, skipping anymore unnecessary introductions. Stiles was instantly on edge, years of supernatural bullshit opening his mind to the endless possibilities. Thing is though, he’s run into more humans that kidnap than creatures.

 “Not right how? Have they said what they want? How long have you been here?”

“Hold your britches, kid. I’ve been here eleven days, Jeremy here for five. They brought him in when they let the last girl go. Brought her in when the boy before was let go. It’s only ever been two of us at a time but there are four cages when the lights come on. They don’t talk to us, but they stay and listen if you speak to them. It’s like they’re… saving us for something.”

“So they kept you and got rid of two others? What makes you so special? And what makes _them_? Tell me about the people who brought us here.”

“They’re not _people_ ,” Jeremy bit out in a hushed voice. “They’re too strong. It’s not natural. One of them- he was small, I should’ve been able to crack his skull with my arm-” Stiles had an image of Derek rough housing with Scott and doing something similar. “- he took me down like it was _nothing_.”

“It was his maneuvering,” Sara tried to reason.

“I squat four-oh-seven, he didn’t _maneuver_ anything.”

“Alright, alright, ok keep going. What else isn’t right about them? You’ve gotta give me something, I don’t care how irrational it may seem. Sara, you seem reasonable.”

“Thanks.”

“Yea, forget that,” Stiles insisted. “Forget logic, fuck it. You’re too smart to overlook the little things. Tell me. Please. I promise, literally nothing you say can sound crazy to me.”

There were a few beats of silence and for the first time, Stiles heard one of his fellow captives shift in their cage. He waited as patiently as he could for all the thoughts bouncing around his head- none of which were promising.

“They want us clean,” Sara said at last and Stiles straightened, curious. “They haven’t given me any new clothes but they bring me a cloth and water bowl with the meal to bathe myself with.”

Something in her voice made Stiles think that she was holding back, maybe not keeping details but what she’d figured those details meant. Crap, he wished he could see her, read her face, know who he was trapped with.

“What aren’t you telling me, Sara?” Stiles asked as calmly as he could. Sara let out a huffy sigh and suddenly Stiles was picturing her as Erica. He pushed down the bitter thoughts and sad memories of high school.

“At first… at first I thought it was because they needed to use us for something. But the only time they have given it to anyone besides myself, it is when they are here for more than two days.”

“They don’t want you to stink up the place,” Jeremy said before Stiles could ask how that disproved her original theory. “I was so thirsty the first time they brought me the bowl that I drank the water instead and when they brought our next meal the dude looked like he was taking out overdue trash.”

Sara made a judgmental noise. “That doesn’t make _sense_ Jeremy. I couldn’t smell you from here, and I’m closer to you than they ever get.

Stiles slumped back against the corner of his cell, the cold metal sucking the small amount of heat out of his body and making him shiver. Now this was approaching familiar territory. Calming. How fucked was it that he was _relieved_ it sounded like werewolves and not some other creature. Lydia would scold him for making assumptions with so little information, but he hadn’t come across very many too-strong beings with super noses that kept human shape. And ones that took Stiles in particular? Well, it wouldn’t be the first time he was kidnapped for his relations of the wolfy persuasion.

It had been long enough, though, that he wasn’t the clearest on the protocol they’d agreed on a while back. And anyway, most of those guidelines had involved actually interacting with the captor, not sitting and waiting in a fucking cage.

Stiles half-heartedly listened to Sara and Jeremy argue back and forth about what constituted as an unusually strong sense of smell versus a supernatural one and the likelihood of the existence of the supernatural. He focused instead back on himself, his dealings with the supernatural. Things really had been quiet recently; after the whole _being a beacon_ debacle, evil shit started to know better than to come to Beacon Hills. Like moths evolving to avoid bug zappers. He didn’t _think_ he’d done anything to warrant kidnapping. Honestly the most dangerous thing he’d done was eat Scott’s last frozen burrito.

… granted Scott _was_ an alpha werewolf with the ability to rip him in half…

Ok so he hadn’t done anything dangerous _to a stranger_.

And aside from the whole will he/won’t he emissary junk and the part where he was best friends with a bunch of werewolves, a banshee, a supernatural murdermachine, and a fox demon and how he _might_ be able to do some pretty cool shit with a handful of mountain ash, he was a totally normal, spritely young man.

“ _-and the eyes_. _Stiles, their eyes_.”

Stiles sat back up at attention when Sara’s voice sounded more scared than contrary. He looked toward the direction of her voice out of habit.

“It’s the woman.”

It took him a minute to see what she was talking about, his eyes flicking uselessly around the darkness with nothing to focus on. Then he saw them, the glowing red pinpricks come at them from his left. He tried to watch them, to keep them in his sight, but every time he locked on them for more than a few seconds they phased out of sight, like trying to stare at those little glow in the dark stars. His doubts were put to rest.

“A female alpha. Refreshing.”

The red eyes tilted as they came to a stop just a few feet from Stiles’ cage, blinking slowly a few times before a woman’s voice rang out clear.

“Lights.”

It didn’t matter that the lights were soft and yellow and set off a short ways back, Stiles still had to duck his head and squeeze his eyes shut until he could flutter his lids without squinting. Instinct had him focusing on the woman in front of him, the hairs rising on the back of his neck. _Predator_. She was tall and wide at the shoulders, more muscle than anything, with curly blonde hair pulled back and a sharp face. Her lips pulled back into a curious smile as she stepped forward and came to squat in front of his cage. For a moment, Stiles thought she looked quite kind. But then she inhaled sharply, nostrils flaring and smirk turned dangerous.

“And here I thought nothing was gonna beat our little eidetic girl.”

Stiles looked to his right where Sara was huddled quietly in her cage. She was a small thing, able to sit quite comfortable, with unwashed brown hair, tan skin, and giant green eyes. Behind her, in a cage the same size as theirs, Jeremy hunkered down, his tall frame and large muscles making him look more like a giant in a match box.

“But you,” the alpha brought Stiles’ attention forward again, “you smell like wolves.”

“Your point?” Wait, what was one of those kidnapped guidelines? Don’t antagonize your captor? But the woman just made a noise like a purr.

“My _point_ is that you don’t just smell like one wolf.”

Stiles sat back and tried his best to look casual. “What’s it to you? Which pack are you guys anyway?” He asked as if he would understand the answer. Compared to the other two prisoners, his werewolf relations were the only thing that made him special, and yea, ok what he did was pretty damn special but still, nothing else about him stuck out. Something told him he needed to play that up, keep them thinking he was important.

The alpha dropped down unceremoniously into a sitting position, plucking at her lip thoughtfully with one hand and leaning back on the other. “Drafend.”

Stiles shot up again, recognition washing over him. He came forward in the cage until his knees knocked the bars that he gripped. It didn’t even register that her offer of information was too easy, that was one of the few packs he knew (well, how well do you really _know_ a pack when you’ve only read about them).  

“We’re in Oregon?”

“Yep.” She popped the ‘p’ like she was bored and again, it was too easy.

“So you had one of your betas travel no less than what, two and a half hours to kidnap me for some bizarre reason.” Stiles gestured outside of his imprisonment with a wide motion that he hoped expressed his confusion. This time, the alpha didn’t give up her information quite so easily. She snatched his hand out of the air, clutching his fingers until his knuckles ground painfully. He thought for a second that she would keep squeezing until the bones popped and broke. The first spike of true fear thudded in his heart as she brought his wrist up to her nose, open lips just barely brushing.

“Your little werewolf friends ever tell you how good you smell?” Her words melted like chocolate and she let out a hungry groan. “Oh, I could eat you right up.”

“You’d spend more time picking me out of your teeth than enjoying your meal.” Stiles tried to yank his hand back without success. The alpha licked a strip across his pulse, humming and letting her eyes slip closed as she reveled in the taste of his spiking adrenaline. “But you didn’t bring me here for a quick dinner.”

“Oh, didn’t I?”

“Considering you weren’t even the one to come get me?”

“You were brought here on my orders.”

“You don’t even know who I _am_ , you didn’t order shit.” And like that, the playful light flashed from the alpha’s eyes in a red burst, and Stiles barely had time to regret his words.

There was a sound like a snapping branch overcome by the echoing of Stiles’ scream off the cavern walls. Stiles let his arm go limp, his body telling him not to tug away and make it worse when that’s all he wanted to do, to pull into himself and back into the opposite corner of his confines. The woman held his crushed appendage with an unforgiving grip, squeezing ever so slightly with her words.

“What pack are you from?” she bit out. Her words were harsher now, voice resonating with the roar of her bloodline. Stiles bit clenched his jaw until his teeth ground to keep in the pathetic sound he knew would escape him if he let it. It only earned him another squeeze, his injured hand being pulled until his face slammed into the bars.

“B-Beacon Hills!” he all but shouted. “Fuck, I’m from Beacon Hills, alright? Just _stop_!”

Off to the right, Sara was muffling her own scared noises. Stiles focused on them to calm himself. He didn’t want her to be scared, either of them. He had an advantage over them. Wasn’t that the way everyone back home lived? Great power and responsibility and all. Well, he may not have power, but he had a step up above them and it was his job to make sure they stayed ok. He reeled himself in, focused on the whimpers instead of his pulse beating like a drum in his fingers, growing hotter by the second. He focused enough to see recognition dawn on the alpha’s face, delight replacing the annoyance of seconds ago.

“No way. No _freaking_ way.” With every word, she shook Stiles’ hand in her excitement, every little movement sending a jolt of pain up his arm and making it hard to keep himself together. “You’re _their_ human. With the little baby alpha- the _true_ alpha. And a fucking _Hale_. That pack? Is it my birthday? You have to be shitting me.”

“Why do you care so much what pack I’m from?” Stiles chocked out. His voice was cracked and his throat hurt from holding back tears of anguish. “Why do you even want us here? It’s obviously not information if I’m the only one that knows about werewolves and it has nothing to do with power, we’re all just hu-”

No. No fuck no, shit. Stiles froze, his body struck with the realization and it sent a stab of ice through his chest. The alpha’s gleeful eyes met his own.

“Y-you can’t, you _can’t_. What, are you new at this? You can’t just go around kidnapping people and turning them into werewolves! You’ll have hunters on your ass in _days_. You’ll-”

“I’ll _nothing_ ,” she spit, jarring his hand for good measure. “You think you know so much from your one little pack in one little town in the entire country? The world? Don’t waste your ignorance here. Shut up and wait your turn.”

Finally, finally, _finally_ the alpha dropped his hand and stood. The release from its prison started a whole new type of pain as the cracked bones shifted. Stiles kicked off with his feet, away from the alpha, fast as he could into the corner until he was nearly laying down, head propped up between bars and breath coming in angry tufts.

“You wanna talk about ignorance? When one of your stupid little betas kidnapped a human kid who happens to be best friends with werewolves, Argents, and’s the son of a Sheriff? That’s like an ignorance trifecta!” What.

The alpha barely graced him with an amused “What the fuck” look as she moved down the line towards Jeremy’s cage. She pulled a keychain from the pocket of her jeans to undo the padlock and throw open the top. Poor Jeremy, cooped up in a too small cage for three days, couldn’t even straighten his legs out when the alpha hauled him out by the scruff of the neck. Sara let out a stifled sob as she watched her last friend get dragged out into the fading yellow light by a pair of claws.

“I don’t understand. I don’t understand,” Sara was chanting. Stiles tried to drink in as many details about her before the far off light dimmed out entirely. She was tugging her hands through her hair, kneeling on skinny legs in a jean dress and sweater and her face was streaked with tears. As the shadows overcame them, and the yellow light did nothing but strain their sight, she looked over at Stiles with those big green eyes. It clenched Stiles’ heart to see her look so lost when minutes ago she had sounded so strong. He tried not to compare her to Lydia, crying alone in her car when everything had gotten too much- smart and beautiful and just so fucking _done_.

And then it was dark.

He was going to die. Probably. Stiles was probably going to die. There were three outcomes to whatever it was this deranged pack had schemed: 1. he was going to be killed outright- he didn’t think this was as easy as being chosen and bitten, there was another card they weren’t showing. 2. He was going to get the bite and reject it and die anyway. 3. He was going to become a werewolf. He never wanted to be a werewolf, but then, he’d rather be a werewolf than dead. He knew the ins and outs, the advantages and disadvantages better than most. Sometimes he even thought he knew better than Scott. He’d been the one to suggest lycanthropy. He’d been the one to discover what caused the change and how to anchor it. And that had just been in the first month since that night in the woods.

It felt like years away and like yesterday.

He wanted his mom.

He wanted Scott and his dad.

He wanted Derek.

“ _Say something!_ ”

Whatever lost little world he’d been in, Sara’s screeching words had Stiles plummeting back into the moment. He took a few calming breaths to reign himself in, accept his fate (suppress it) and remind himself that this wasn’t just about himself anymore.

“Sara-” he started in a hitching voice and cleared his throat before he continued, cradling his broken hand to his chest. “Sara, I’m so sorry you were dragged into this.”

“I don’t even know what _this_ is. It doesn’t make sense. I don’t _understand_! I don’t- you said werewolves like it wasn’t completely insane and I just… I don’t…”

Stiles reached out through the side of his cage with his good arm, wanting to have some type of contact with her if he couldn’t see her. By some miracle, Sara was doing the same thing and with a few good tugs and tussles he managed to bring their prisons wall to wall. He held her hand in his, hoping that the touch soothed his words.

“I did say werewolves. I also told you that you sounded smart, too smart to be able to ignore everything that happened. You saw her eyes, her strength. You heard our conversation. None of this is going to get any easier so you just need to accept it. Werewolves.”

Sara let out a shaky breath, took a minute to herself to force the information down like a spoon of sour medicine. “But you’re not a… a werewolf. You’re here because you’re human. She had us collected. For what? You said to turn us into one of them but if that were the plan why don’t they just _do it_ already. Why are we even _here_? Jeremy is… and everyone else and I- I…”

Stiles released her hand to rub comfortingly up and down Sara’s arms a few times. He hadn’t tried to introduce anyone to werewolves since the incident with his dad and a poorly executed chess board back in high school. “I don’t know why they’re doing this to us. The werewolves I know aren’t like them- they’re nice. They don’t just go around kidnapping strangers-”

“They’re not strangers…” Sara interrupted. Well that was… what. “The one who took me… I’d seen him before. In lab. I study neuroscience at Irvine-”

“Right, yea, she said you had eidetic memory? That’s pretty cool.”

Sara finally moved her hand to grasp his and play gently with his fingers. “I’m not. It’s closer to hyperthymesia.” (Well if _that_ didn’t sound like a word Lydia would use) “I spend quite a lot of time in lab and there was a new man who sometimes worked there at night and he… he… he came in right after my professor left and pressed a cloth to my face. I don’t know how long it took to get wherever we are but they feed us once a day and I’ve had eleven meals.”

“We’re in Oregon, not that that makes any difference. Were the others from California, too?”

“Yes, all of them.”

“Well, I don’t know about you but it seems awfully troublesome to kidnap a bunch of people one state over from your territory if it weren’t for a reason.” Talking out loud helped him think, organized his thoughts so that he could hear if they sounded stupider than they did in his head. He paused for a second though, plucking at Sara’s fidgeting fingers. “If they make a habit out of this, however often they do it, changing states makes sense I guess. Because it’s not just us that are disappearing, if the wolves that took us set up camp for a while, they’re going to be missing too and if the people working our cases are any type of competent they’d find the connections eventually.” Unless they neatly closed up all their loose ends, but he wanted at least _something_ to sound positive. Well…. ‘positive.’

“But _why_?”

“Why what?” Right, fuck. With all the thoughts and scenarios running through his head, talking so plainly about werewolves, it didn’t quite compute that Sara knew literally nothing about werewolves. Why? Why them? Why were they taken? Why any of it? He started small, with born and bitten werewolves and packs. Sara mostly listened, no doubt filled with too many questions to choose from. He told her about the full moon and alphas and betas and omegas and wolfsbane. He told her about hunters and the code and emissaries. He held back only on his own pack, plausible deniability and all that. The alpha seemed too excited about them; if he was going to be killed or turned and used against them, he didn’t want anything about them to get back to her.

He didn’t know why this pack kidnapped humans. He didn’t know what their endgame was or how they avoided being found out. He didn’t even know how big a pack they were. He told Sara as much, started bouncing ideas off each other because she really was smart. She absorbed what he said like a sponge and spit it back a different way, toying with his world views until something clicked and slid into place and made sense to him.

They talked for hours and there were no clicks. There were no light switches flipping or shoes dropping or tables turning.

Stiles had no idea why he was there.

But he was pretty sure he was going to die.

*

“Hey Stiles?”

Stiles turned his head, pillowed between two of the bars and nearly numb from lack of movement. The less he moved, the less he felt. His back was to the front of the cave, his left arm reaching into Sara’s cage where she gripped his hand tight. She didn’t claim to seek comfort in it, but Stiles didn’t really care. It comforted him.

“Do you have a girl?”

He huffed a little laugh. “I have a Lydia?” Lydia wasn’t his girl, she wasn’t anyone’s, but she was his best friend and one of only two women in his life at the moment.

“Tell me about her.”

How does one describe Lydia Martin? “She’s a math genius angel red head who can kick my ass ten ways to Sunday in every aspect of my life.”

Sara laughed, clear and almost kind of perfect, like a sound clip. “That sounds very romantic.”

“Nah, me and Lydia aren’t like that…”

“… _but_ … don’t hold out on me, I’m bored out of my mind here.”

Stiles shifted his whole body, just minutely but it still made his body ache and his hand throb. Was there a ‘but?’ Did he sound like there was a ‘but’ in there?

Yea ok, there was a ‘but’…

“There’s a… there’s this guy, I guess.”

“You guess?”

“Yea, _I guess_.” Stiles jabbed her palm playfully with his finger. “He’s uh… he’s my… Derek. And he’s basically the opposite of Lydia. Except he’s just as stubborn. And he’s kind of a tool with the kind of face that looks so good you want to punch because there’s no way a guy can look that good without being a douche. And he’s a douche. He’s a total douche. Derek is a reeeaaaal… douche.”

“Sounds like you’re a little in love.”

For some reason, the notion didn’t surprise Stiles nearly as much as it should. He nodded into the darkness despite the twinge it sent through his neck and temples. “Yea… Hey what about you?”

Sara hummed. “There is a boy back in Turkey. Murat. We were best friends until I moved to America when I was twelve. We write sometimes, not as often as we used to. I think I’ve always loved him… If I make it out of this alive I think I ought to tell him.”

Stiles wondered if he made it, if he had to courage to tell Derek.

*

“Rock, paper, scissors, shoot!”

“DAMMIT!”

“Best twenty-five out of forty-nine?”

“…. Fine…”

*

“The Hunter’s Moon.”

Sara shifted out of her light doze, fingers curling into Stiles’ as she came to consciousness. “What was that?”

“October is the Hunter’s Moon. When the game is fat and hunted in preparation for winter.” The name had come to him out of a string of barely connected thoughts. “It’s sometimes called the Traveler’s Moon.”

Sara was quiet for a long moment, so long that Stiles thought that maybe she hadn’t quite woken up enough to hear him, but her fingers were rubbing around his hand in purposeful patterns. Stiles heard her sit up straight and shuffle around a little. Her voice was quiet and even, resigned like a person who had come to terms with their fate.

“Stiles, have you ever read The Most Dangerous Game by Richard Connell?”

His stomach dropped. “Why do I not like the sound of that?”

“It’s about a man, Rainsford, who hunts large animals and ends up stranded on an island with another man, Zaroff, who has found the sport too dull. The rule is that if Rainsford can survive for three days being hunted by Zaroff, Ivan, and a pack of hunting dogs for three days, he may live. Rainsford gets a three hour start, but it is still very difficult for him.”

“Does he win?”

“Barely. He kills Ivan and jumps off a cliff into the sea to escape the dogs. Zaroff finds him in his quarters and they fight to the death.” Her voice became deep and mocking, her slight accent slipped into an ostentatious Russian one. “ _One of us is to furnish a repast for the hounds. The other will sleep in this very excellent bed_.”

“So… does he win?”

Sara ceased her movements and held fast to Stiles’ hand.

“ _He had never slept in a better bed_.”

Stiles hoped that was a sign.

*

Whether the sun set or rose or set again, they had no idea. Their place in the cave was far too deep for natural light to reach. Hunger pangs had been curdling Stiles’ stomach for some hours; he’d been brought in just after dinner the day before so he was going on at least a day and half without food. Possibly two. Time passed by in silence and hand holding, one of them speaking occasionally whenever Sara realized a question or Stiles thought of another thing that might help her survive. Eventually, though, they both felt time running out. Stiles could practically hear the ticking of a clock in the back of his mind, each second bringing them closer to his turn. He tried to form plans in his mind, tried to remember every little thing he’d ever heard of or experienced or seen of his friends- their strengths, what threw them off a track, how fast they could run with and without minor injury. Surviving was still his top priority, not just for himself, but for Sara. The full moon would be rough on him, no doubt, but he felt such a strong urge to protect her that he hoped that was enough to hold the others off. Killing a werewolf is easier when you’re of equal strength.

Still, it was impossible to tell the hour.

Until a pair of electric blue pinpricks appeared in the dark.

The beta was silent as he came close. He knelt down before them and there was the sound of plates on the dirt floor. As he left, the yellow lights flared up. This time, Stiles recovered from the intrusion on his retinas sooner and blinked back tears as he looked over at Sara. She was digging the heels of her palms into her eyes and sitting up onto her knees. For a brief moment, Stiles was jealous of her small stature and her ability to move about with general ease in their confines. 

The plates that had been brought to them each had a small cut up steak, baby carrots, half a potato, and a bottle of water. Stiles dove for the water bottle first, hoping to stave off some of his hunger so that he didn’t eat so fast that he got sick. As he chugged, squeezing the bottle and wheezing through his nose, he noticed the single key that had been placed carefully between the plates. Sara reached out and ran her fingers over its grooves but didn’t pick it up.

“Eat first, but eat quickly. I don’t know how much time they will give you to start, if any.”

“Won’t help much but we might be able to get the lay of the land.”

Sara didn’t say anything else and they ate in silence. All of the food was overcooked but to Stiles’ starving mind it was the best meal he’d ever eaten. Sara packed her food away at an alarming rate, stuffing great handfuls into her mouth until she looked like a chipmunk. If he had it in him to laugh, he would. But he didn’t and he couldn’t. He didn’t think about what he was about to go through, either. It was probably stupid, ignoring his impending doom. But… whatever. Thinking about it anymore wasn’t going to change what happened.

Eventually though, the time came. Stiles reached for the key. It was cold and heavy and hard to maneuver with only his left hand. Sara reached over and held the lock on the top of his cage steady as he pushed the key in.

Only… only it didn’t fit. He tried again, swiveling the angle to get it right. He tried jamming it in, tried to force the key into the lock until he was sure the metal was going to break. Sara brought her other hand up to envelope his, held on for a moment before she took the key from his hands and slipped it into her own latch. The padlock fell to the ground with a heavy thunk.

It wasn’t supposed to be this way. They’d told Sara they were saving her until the full moon. It was supposed to be Stiles’ turn; he was supposed to clear a path for Sara’s success. This wasn’t _right_. And Sara looked so calm, maybe a little sad, but she wasn’t freaking out the way Stiles was. Not outwardly at least.

“Maybe… maybe it’s better this way,” he comforted, though who he was comforting wasn’t something he wished to examine. “The full moon will make them meaner, more ravenous. This is good, it’s better this way. Yea, ok.”

As Sara climbed out the top of her cage- with a little difficulty considering her height- she gave Stiles a sad smile and knelt in front of him. “Don’t be so faithless, Stiles. Maybe I’ll be your hero.” She reached in so she could pull Stiles forward by the collar of his shirt and kiss him. It was platonic and sweet and tasted like goodbye. As a latch ditch effort to help, Stiles pressed the abandoned key into the pocket of her jean dress.

“Gouge their fucking eyes out.”

*

Waiting alone in the darkness was nothing short of torture. No noise permeated the walls of the cave until a few hours after Sara had left- a single high-pitched howl that snaked in through the cave opening and ghosted around him in an echo. He didn’t know what it meant and tried not to dwell on it.

(That was a lie, he agonized over it, replayed it, tore apart his memory of one tiny sound to try and decipher it.)

Time passed slower without Sara there. He was left alone with his thoughts and his broken hand and an ache spreading through his hips and neck and temples. His body felt like one giant bruise, just from sitting there. He counted the throb of his heartbeat in his hand, losing himself in the microscopic delay between the beat in his hand and the beat in his throat.

He thought about his dad up in arms at the station, searching his bedroom for clues, panicking alone in their house that’s too big for two people let alone one.

He thought about Scott trying desperately to track his scent, Stiles’ shirt in one hand as he circled around and around and around for a trail.

He thought about Allison and her father and their phone tree of hunters that were probably still at their beck and call even after years of official retirement.

He thought about Derek and his rage and his heartbreak and that one hurt Stiles because he knew it was a different kind of pain that would drive Derek to search endlessly, sleeplessly.

Don’t be faithless. That’s what Sara had said. Have faith in others to do the rescuing. There was still a chance that they would find him, find them. There was a chance that Scott would pick up a trail or the Sheriff would track the right car or Allison would follow the right rumor or Derek would charge head first, blindly into the right direction. They were all smart, even in crisis, in their own way. They all had their own strengths and more heart than most.

*

He slept some. Restlessly and probably not enough, but one minute he was sitting up and humming and the next he was slumped down with his neck at an abysmal angle and his hips were screaming from improper treatment. It wasn’t the pain that woke him, though, but the lights coming on. Like before, there was a plate of food and a key. This time, he tried the key before he ate. Only having one hand made things difficult, but the effort was well worth the ability to stand and stretch. Every joint popped, every muscle ached in the most delicious way as he raised his arms up high above his head and bent his back this way and that.

He ate the food with relish, slowly so that if he had to run, he wouldn’t have to worry about throwing up. As Stiles chewed the overdone steak, he realized he actually had no idea what to expect. Maybe they were just saving him and would bite him as soon as he exited the cave. Maybe they’d rough him up a little and not bite him at all. Maybe his friends were already there and looking for him. Maybe Sara had done something amazing and taken over the pack and was going to jump out from around the corner and surprise him.

Maybe he was an idiot. But he had to have faith.

The lights were brightest in the little cavern with the cages; a couple bare bulbs bundled together. They connected to a power cord that led toward the exit, at the end of every cord a light that connected to a new cord. It was barely enough light to keep Stiles from stumbling on the uneven floor. More than once he came close to falling and the last thing he wanted to do before he faced down a pack of werewolves was fall on a broken hand.

The cave itself went on for quite some time but not as long as Stiles expected. It twisted and turned plenty, enough to keep light out during the day. It wasn’t day now, though. He stumbled out into a forest with a hard packed floor and trees spread further apart than most forests and a full moon that was only just high enough in the sky to allow him to see. It was a plain forest with tall skinny trees that didn’t have branches until near the top. Stiles took a few cautious steps out into the chilly October air. It was cooler here than October in Beacon Hills, colder out in the air than it had been in the cave with shelter from the wind.

And it… smelled. There was a faint smell on the air that didn’t belong to nature. It smelled like metal and sulfur and… and Stiles _knew_ that smell. A deep inhale called up his memories of the weekend “camping” trip the pack had done as a favor to some of the Argent’s more agreeable friends. The forest was familiar. The smell was weak compared to how utterly overwhelming it had been when they faced down the Garmr, but it was unmistakably the same smell, the same type of trees, the same hard forest floor with dry brown grass.

“I know where I am,” he whispered into the wind. “I know this place, I know where I am.” A spark or real hope lit up in his chest, true and giddy and unlike the forced feeling he’d had earlier. The forest was only a handful of miles off some campgrounds and a waterfall. He could almost picture the map in his head, the curve of a river, mountains to the west, forest to the east, the Metolius river running northeast. If he followed the rising moon, he’d find the campground; there were bound to be people there on such a beautiful night. He could do it. He had to find Sara. They could get away.

He went to take the first step toward freedom, and came to a second later flat on his stomach, the air knocking out of his lungs in one painful cough. There was a weight on top of him, the weight of another person pressing on his back and his hand was on fire again, having smacked into the ground like the rest of him and he can’t take in air, he can’t _breathe_ , he can’t…

“ _Ssssh, it’s ok, it’s ok, calm down_ ,” Came a whisper in his ear. Stiles bucked to dislodge whoever was holding him down, kicked off hard with his legs and wriggled his body around and tried to grab at the man with his good hand. The werewolf brought his hands down on Stiles’ upper arms, his fingers clawed and his grip tight enough to sting. Bright blue eyes glowed in the sockets of his shadowed face, wide and wondering as Stiles struggled to look over his shoulder.

“Get _off_ ,” Stiles barked and bucked his hips once more, only once, against his assailant and immediately stilled. He was hard, the wolf, aroused and pressing back down against Stiles’ struggles. He let out a little purr that chilled Stiles more than the breeze. Paralysis came instinctually, still under the eyes and talons of a predator.

“I’ve been waiting so long to see you here Stiles,” the wolf hummed, body coming down to blanket Stiles so he could bring his face in close again, nose against cheek. Huffing, sniffing, a lick on his jaw. Stiles felt like he was going to vibrate out of his skin. “I knew, _I knew_ Annie was going to be happy when she found you out. But that’s not why I picked you. _Stiles_.” His name on that tongue was acrid. He didn’t know what to do, how to get out of this. He scrambled around with his good hand for something, _anything_ , a rock, a stick, a toad, anything to use against the werewolf. The ground was smooth and unforgiving and didn’t offer as much as a handful of brown grass.

“Will you stop that,” the wolf growled and pulled Stiles’ arms up so he could hold both wrists with one hand. The movement tortured his hand, made the hot skin sting and broken knuckles grind and he couldn’t suppress the pained yelp. “I just…” the wolf continued, “I just wanted you so _badly_ , Stiles, but I had to wait. I had to bring you here to show Annie I’m good enough. She’s so proud of me for finding you. I just wanted you. You’ll be such a good wolf, I know it. They never saw your potential like I do. Scott never wanted you to become a werewolf because you’d be so much better at it than him. And Derek… how could he keep his hands off you? How could anyone? But that’ll change soon, and then I can… then I can…” He pressed his hips down into Stiles’ backside, the clothed curve of his hard on slotting into the dent of his cheeks. The wolf’s unoccupied hand traced down the side of his body, razor like claws slicing his shirt like tissue in one slow movement until he could tuck his fingers into the hem of Stiles’ rust-colored jeans. “I could, before Annie comes looking, before it starts, I could…”

Stiles pressed his forehead into the ground and tried to gulp in a breath. His lungs were filled with cotton, his throat tight and sticky. This wasn’t happening. It was the nightmares again, the hallucinations. He was dreaming. None of it was real. _Come on, Stiles, breathe, you need to breathe_.

He couldn’t get any air in, couldn’t breathe as the werewolf sliced through an inch or so of his jeans, just enough to tug them down around his thighs.

_It’s just a dream; it’s just a dream, wake up!_

The wolf slid his fingers along the crease of his ass with relish, like he was taking his time just to make Stiles panic, hyperventilate, struggle.

“I’ve seen you touch yourself here, at night when you’re home alone. Those nights were always the hardest to stay away. Sometimes the smell of you, God, Stiles do you know how good you smell? Do you know how hard it was for me to watch you touch yourself and not come in to join you? I deserve this, finally. I worked so hard…” He pressed harder with his fingers, purposefully, seeking out the place no one but himself had ever touched before. Stiles body was taught as a bow string, his muscles seizing in his terror at the unfamiliar fingers rubbing deviously soothingly across his hole. The wolf growled when his actions weren’t accepted easily as Stiles spasmed and thrashed. “Stop it, just let me… _will you stop it_! Let me, let me _have this,_ Stiles, I waited so lo- _nononoNO!_ ”

A rush of cold air at his back was the only thing that told Stiles the werewolf had been dislodged from him. He still couldn’t breathe, couldn’t take in anything more than a tight wheeze. The man landed the same side Stiles’ head was turned, unconscious. There was the sound of someone shuffling above him, grumbling under their breath. Stiles found the strength to tug his jeans back up, his first deep breath coming in when he could sit up and fold in on himself. It didn’t register that he couldn’t see the other werewolf until there was a flash of black and the press of metal on his throat and the clink of a lock. His hand flew up to tug on the cold black box as the alpha came around into view with a little clicker in her hands.

“He’s always so fucking impatient,” she grumbled, poking at the knocked out body with the toe of her shoe. “Let it be a lesson to you, what happens when you break my rules.”

“What rules?” Stiles choked out, honestly impressed that he managed any words at all. The alpha, Annie, smiled at him not unkindly (he didn’t believe her sentiment for a second).

“You’ll figure them out soon enough. I’m a big believer in learning by doing. Now…” she held up the clicker and pressed the button. Stiles flinched automatically, but nothing happened. Annie frowned at the device and hit it a few times against her palm. This time, a jolt of pain surged through his body, concentrated fire on his throat drawing out a shout while the rest of him doubled over. In reality, it couldn’t have lasted more than a few seconds but it felt like minutes.

“Oh good, he fixed it. Your little friend did a good bit of damage to my gizmo here. I’m glad to see it’s up and running again. So that means it’s time for you to run along. I’m sure I’ll see you soon enough.”

Stiles blinked and she was gone in a very Derek-like fashion. He allowed himself one more moment to think about his friends back home before he was up again, turning toward the moon and running.

Adrenaline was a funny thing. He could run, hard and fast, despite the duress his lungs had just undergone. He didn’t even know if he was breathing. He was just running, letting the moonlight guide him, the sound of his feet on hard earth and the feel of his heels and knees and hips absorbing the impact of every footfall. It was like time had slowed down, like he was running for miles and miles and all he could think about was the sound of his feet. Flashes of what had just happened were startlingly absent, _the sound of his feet_ , in fact he couldn’t bring himself to really remember it. He couldn’t think of anything, didn’t feel like a person, _the feel of his legs pumping._ He still didn’t know if he was breathing. It didn’t feel like it.

 _The sound of his feet_ , his running was the only sound in the entire forest. Maybe all of the animals had sense enough to clear out when the wolves had arrived. He recalled the eerie silence that was almost as overpowering as the smell when the Garmr had taken up refuge there. If he could just… if he could just _run_ until he knew where he was, until he found their abandoned camp ground, their old traps, if he could _just keep running_. Running until he felt like a person again, though he wasn’t entirely sure he wanted that. He just kept listening to his feet.

Only… only there wasn’t the sound of his feet alone. There was another patter of footfalls coming up behind him, faster than his own, behind him, to his right, in front of him. He couldn’t see whoever it was and he sincerely hoped it wasn’t the man from earlier; he was sure the alpha wouldn’t come to his rescue again. He pushed on until the numbness of his lungs turned into an aching burn, until a stitch in his side flared up; until he could hear the rushing of water join the sound of running. He pushed through the pain, the cold scorch of autumn air boiling his trachea. It couldn’t be much farther, the pounding of the rapids getting louder by the second. If he could just… if he could… _run_.

A towering figure appeared between the two trees he was trying to dodge faster than Stiles could stop himself. It was definitely a body but felt like a tree when he crashed into the wolf’s chest at full speed and was knocked clean off his feet. His wrists and elbows took the brunt of the fall, his broken hand jarring so violently he wasn’t sure he wasn’t better off cutting the appendage off at the wrist. He scrambled back on his elbows, kicking with his feet until there were a few feet between him and the lumbering figure. It was a man again, larger than the other with monstrous shoulders heaving with every breath. For a brief second, Stiles thought it might be Jeremy, until the wolf stepped out of the tree shadow and into the watery white light of the moon. He was larger than Jeremy, black hair where the boy had blonde, almond shaped eyes where Jeremy had close set round ones and wearing a tough leather jacket. They were blue, his eyes, like the other beta. Stiles would bet that every beta in this pack had blue eyes.

The wolf took a single step forward, his gnarled face tilting curiously down at Stiles who was still trying to scooch backward.

“Ok, so uuh, your turn to try and kill me, then?” Stiles asked. He didn’t know how else their interaction could go. “Gonna grind my bones into flour? Make little wolf shaped cookies? Bet’cha could get a nice stew outta me.” Oh my _God_ , Stiles, seriously? How is that supposed to help?

“Gonna try and stop me?” The wolf’s words were more growl than voice, slurred by a salivating mouth full or fangs.

“Lil ole me against Cujo? I’m flattered you even thought of that but I’m gonna have to go with a big fat _no_. I’m a bit defenseless at the mo’. Can’t guarantee I won’t scream, though. I’ve been told I have a problem shutting up when I’m terrified. Like now… for example.” Fighting back, running away, that would just egg them on. The hunt wasn’t any fun if the prey didn’t run, and he had a feeling this was more about fun for them than killing or turning him.

It was by an amazing stroke of luck that the wolf let out one juicy laugh and disappeared into the night.

The intense relief that little interaction brought on a near immediate drop in his energy. His mind came back to him, his limbs heavy and stiff and forcing him to lie there and fruitlessly fight against the flashes and touch memory. He could feel the alphas grip around his hand and her lips on his wrist the same as he could feel a hand around his wrists and between his legs and a weight on his stomach. It was all too much too fast; he couldn’t keep up with events, couldn’t process them or keep them in order. Time in the cave had passed so slowly and it felt like it had been years ago that he and Sara were sitting in the dark talking and playing rockpaperscissors.

He didn’t know how to play this little game they’d thrust him into. He didn’t understand the rules, he didn’t know how to win, if winning was even a possibility. Slowly, little by little, Stiles came back to himself and he did his best to remove himself from the details. Logically. Separate from himself. Look at what the wolves had done, not just to him. The alpha had saved him but it hadn’t been from certain death. The large beta had chased him for over a mile and hadn’t so much as tried to touch him. Maybe he wasn’t the only one with rules. The alpha had made it seem like tradition, perhaps even like a ceremony.

The bite is a gift.

He had to prove himself worthy of such a gift.

*

The river flowed exactly north, narrow and wooded and a little bit rough on the rocks. It could disguise his scent and the sound was enough to drown out the sound of his heartbeat. The problem, however, was that the campground was south, against the flow, and the water itself was freezing. Really, the only good thing about the plan was that it only took seconds for his broken hand to go numb.

Trudging against the current was slow going as Stiles sunk in to his shoulders. He let the water take most of his weight and pushed off the pebbled riverbed, staying close enough to shore to make a quick escape on foot. He couldn’t prove himself worthy against a werewolf bare handed, but he could outlast the night and look for civilization at the same time. And hey, who knows, maybe he could lead one of them to the Garmr site and pray to God some of their old traps were still untouched. That was as good as his plan was going to get.

No weapons, no friends, a broken hand, and a pack of werewolves toying with him. Yea, the odds looks real great.

It was no more than half a mile down the river that Stiles noticed a figure keeping pace with him just inside the tree line. It was small enough to be the alpha or the first man, maybe a beta he hadn’t met yet. Whoever it was didn’t try to overtly alert Stiles to their presence, nor did they try to lure him out of the water or chase after him. They just followed him, walking leisurely as Stiles struggled against the frigid current. After another half a mile or so, he realized how pointless it was to remain in the water and stumbled up onto the rocky shore. The wind chilled him faster than the water had, wracking his body with shivers.

The wolf kept its distance, didn’t give any indication that it saw or care that Stiles was approaching at an angle. He didn’t bother trying to creep or breathe quietly. He wasn’t going to stress over something so utterly pointless. They walked forward together, the wolf in a straight line and Stiles cutting inward every few steps until he was close enough to recognize that it wasn’t a beta he knew. The third male Sara had talked about, tall and thin like Isaac but with pin-straight hair that fell around his ears. From the distance, he couldn’t tell what color it was under the colorless light of the moon- everything from a distance was grey and blue and black.

In a blink, the beta was standing in front of him, making Stiles jump out of his skin because he always _hated_ when they did that. This pack especially had a penchant for disappearing and reappearing with apparent teleportation skills. Derek always did that to him when he was home alone, laughing and laughing when Stiles jumped or spilt something or ran into a door ( _once_ , it was only _once_ ).

The skinny beta crossed his arms and gave Stiles an unimpressed look with human features. “You were supposed to be the fun one. Hasn’t your pack taught you anything?”

“You mean taught me how useless my bare hands are against a werewolf? Do you really think I’m stupid enough to think I stand a chance against any of you? If I was prepared I’d at least have some Mountain Ash or a knife or something.”

The beta wrinkled his nose and moved his hands to his hips. “That’s what I told Annie. At least the others were stupid enough to fight back. It’s no fun if you don’t.” He was almost pouting a little and Stiles couldn’t help but let out a humorless laugh.

“Gimme a gun and I’ll see what I can do for you. A little danger always spices things up.”

“How ‘bout a hint instead?”

Stiles eyed the other man warily. His first instinct was to absolutely not trust him, because _duh_. But… this really did seem to be more about fun than “winning” and if he made it more difficult for them, it would only add to their entertainment. And if it was more difficult for them, it was that much easier for Stiles. He literally had nothing else to lose at this point. He nodded. The beta threw his head back to indicate the direction they’d been heading before.

“Keep going that way. Fast as you can.” He didn’t disappear like Stiles expected him to, but turned his back and walked into the shadows of the forest.

There was a beat of indecision, and then Stiles was running, fast as ever to the south. A tiny bubble of hope cleared his mind, paved the way for that whisper of faith Sara had planted in his ear to reach his heart. He followed the tree line, ignored the cold as best he could, pushed himself harder and faster and just _ran_ until he had to tug on the collar just to berathe. Up ahead, there was a funny looking rock formation, made out of the same slate material as the cave, that jutted from the river into his path.

He didn’t realize he was in pain until he heard his own screaming. He didn’t know he was screaming, couldn’t control it. His body was seized up and toppling over onto the ground with nothing to break his fall. He felt like he was on fire, felt like he was vibrating so fast he was going to spontaneously combust and he wished he _would_ , wished his skin would explode to let his insides out, wished he would pass out or die or just _stop screaming_.

Relief came with the gouging of claws under his ribs, pulling him out of the electrical field and slamming him into the rocky riverbank. The screaming finally stopped on an excruciating inhale but a different kind of pain, deep and concentrated. He could feel the claws sinking into his skin like butter, a not unfamiliar feeling after years amongst the supernatural. He felt them push in like nothing and the unbearable dull pressure of them hooking onto bone. It was a calculated movement, careful of his lungs and headless of his pain, surgical in its exaction. Their caution did nothing for his panic or the coughing yell he let out in his assailants face. His throat stung from its exertion and his entire body felt like it was seconds from falling apart.

It was the tall beta, his face twisted into that of a werewolf, fangs gnashing at Stiles’ neck. Teasing, tormenting him with the knowledge that he could be dead with a single bite.

“Play time’s up. This is your first strike.”

 _Fuck you I like baseball_. It was such a stupid thought to pass through his mind when he had wolf hands hooked into his body.

“Have fun with that.”

Stiles heard the _shlick_ of the wolf pulling his claws away more than he felt it. He was so thankful for the temporary lack of pain that it wasn’t registering how bad that was. He didn’t care. He just watched the wolf bleed back into the shadows of the forest without looking back.

Left him there… he just left him there, blood oozing out to soak the thirsty ground, dizzy and confused and numb. Everything was numb- his mind his body… minutes passed, possibly even an hour or two until he found the strength to lift his left arm. The movement brought an end to the numbness, the pain in his abdomen beginning little by little, but he kept at it until he could brush his fingers over the wounds on his left side. There were only two holes that stung when he touched the slippery broken flesh. Two a side was better than four; he wouldn’t survive bleeding from eight puncture holes in his body. The beta hadn’t done this to kill him, no matter how easy it would have been to slice in a little further, pull his ribs a little harder. Maybe it wasn’t about fighting back and winning. Maybe it was about surviving… time or attacks or distance or whatever. Just surviving. Any wolf can hunt and fight and kill, but that wasn’t just what they were about. Survival of the fittest; wolves like these are only as strong as the weakest member of their pack. They’re not about family and bonding, they’re about strength and longevity and the ability to endure.

That was reason enough for Stiles to move, even though few of his hypotheses had been anything close to skewed truth. He rolled over onto his right side and braced himself with his left hand. Pain surged through him with every little twitch. It seemed like no part of him could move without somehow using his abdominals. He pushed through, got up onto his knees and elbows, and rocked forward. Grueling, yes, but really, how much more painful was it than all of high school? Ok, well, a lot, but that’s not the point.

There was no way he could run any more, not when each breath ripped through his sides. Little could be done about his sopping wet clothing or the bleeding or the cold, but he could conserve energy and wait it out. He was sure that they would come to him. In the meantime, he had a rock to climb.

*

Thing about bleeding injuries is you don’t always feel the worst of it until you look at them. One time, when Stiles had been a boy, he’d tripped on the sidewalk in his sandals when walking around with Scott one night. His toe had ached a little, and his sandal was a little sticky, but it wasn’t until they’d reached his lit porch that he realized he was missing an entire toenail.

He didn’t do anything to the wounds in his sides except keep steady pressure on them by squeezing his arms toward his body. He was afraid to look, afraid to see how wide or deep or torn they were because he wasn’t sure he could handle the pain getting any worse.

The funny looking rock formation turned out to be easy to scale and flat enough on top for Stiles to lie down without too much trouble. Despite the river and the smell of the forest, his position was beaconed to the wolves by the smell of his blood and sweat and frazzled emotions. He spent the time fiddling with his collar, pressing it into his neck just enough until the nylon cord could be twisted and the prongs could be pointed away from his neck. The skin there felt raw and hot and dry, like a bad sunburn, but was otherwise negligible.

It didn’t take too long for the sound of heavy footsteps to rise above the sound of the water. Stiles sat up on his rock to see the giant beta from before approach.

“Hiya,” he shouted in a hoarse voice, waving with his bad hand and plastering on a forced smile. The wolf snarled at him, bounced back and forth from foot to foot. He wanted Stiles to run scared, give a chase no matter how pathetic the attempt. When Stiles didn’t budge, he leapt forward, clearing the height and distance in one lunge and doing exactly what Stiles had hoped for. The human snatched him around the neck with an outstretched arm before the beta could find purchase on the rock and slammed him down with his entire body weight. A sharp bark split the air. It wasn’t enough to knock out a wolf, but it was enough to disorient him.

Stiles had a small window of time and an even smaller amount of hope that something about his foolish plan would work. He grabbed the betas hand and tucked his fingers into Stiles’ collar. The fit was so tight he could barely drag in air, but it pressed the two metal prongs of his collar right into the wolf’s palm.

And then he dove forward, arms coming to brace himself over the wolf’s face and legs pushing off the rock with all the strength he had left. The drop was short, but enough to cause the man’s skull to crack loudly on the scattered stones below. They landed in the invisible barrier, the modified collar sending and overabundance of electricity into the werewolf directly. Stiles got some of it, enough to feel uncomfortable and hot and tingly but without the concentrated connection on his bare skin, it was nothing compared to before. His breath was running out but he couldn’t bring himself to pull away. He pulled the wolf’s head up by the hair and slammed it back onto the river stones, once more, twice more, let the shock from the collar stall his healing. Because a human can kill a wolf with their bare hands, you just have to do it fast enough.

Maneuvering away from the boundary was harder with frying wolf fingers digging into his windpipe. Stiles ripped them away and jumped back at the same time, nearly braining himself on the boulder to avoid an accident with the collar. He looked down on the body, the first dead body he’d ever caused instead of found, with anxiety, just for a moment, and then cold indifference.

He couldn’t think about what it meant that he’d killed a man- wolf- werewolf- murderer. He couldn’t let himself feel anything at all. He tugged the body by the foot away from the barrier and the rock until they were safe enough distance away that he could search the man’s pockets without worrying about shocking himself. His jean pockets were empty but his jacket pockets- fuck he couldn’t believe his luck, there was a bundle of keys on a ring and a clicker. Stiles grabbed them and scrambled away in a mass of flailing limbs and bruises. A bubble of laughter escaped him despite how much it hurt his sides. He sorted through the five keys and pulled up the smallest one to the lock at the back of his collar. It was harder than the lock of his cage with only one hand, but he did it. He got it. He dislodged the lock and undid the metal clasp and let the collar drop to the ground.

Strike two.

*

According to Sara, there was only one more beta, the one that had attacked him right out of the cave. Stiles trudged through the forest looking for him, waiting for him to show his face. He _wanted_ to find him. He felt more energized than he had in days, invincible.

He walked north along the river, wanting to know how much land they’d given him for their little game. In all the time it took him to reach a point where the collar in his hand started buzzing, no werewolf had shown there face. They hadn’t howled for their fallen pack member, hadn’t run to find the body or seek revenge. No indication was given that they cared that one of their own had died (and he was most certainly dead, his zipped jacket full or rocks that weighted his unconscious body to the bottom of the river).

At the barrier, he turned toward the forest instead of running away. He couldn’t bring himself to consider running away anymore, empowered by his survival so far. He wanted to find the third beta, strike number three. He wanted to see if he was a survivor.

About a mile into the forest, about two miles from where the cave should be, the smell of rotting flesh began to overtake the sulfuric smell of Garmr. Stiles picked up his pace a little, dread and curiosity overtaking his feeling of indestructability. He had an idea of what it could be and he needed to see for himself. He couldn’t run, couldn’t jog, could barely do more than shuffle his feet faster without jarring his ribs. It didn’t take long until the smell made his nose burn and eyes sting.

Bodies. Left to the elements in a careless pile. The ground around them was darker than the rest, the dry grass absorbing the blood like a sponge. Stiles had to cover the lower half of his face with his right elbow just to get close enough to see. There were four there, two Stiles didn’t recognize, Jeremy, and the giant beta. He ignored the jibe it was from the pack that the werewolf’s body had been added so quickly- he didn’t have a single fuck to give about what they were playing at here- and looked at the other three.

He was supposed to feel sad, seeing them like this; he was supposed to feel sad that innocent people had been killed and yet all he could do was look over their injuries.

Jeremy was the clearest and cleanest, sprawled spread eagle over the others. If it weren’t for the gaping wound on his chest, he could have been sleeping. Stiles inched closer, picking up a dead stick to push aside the torn remains of Jeremy’s shirt. Two familiar injuries adorned the side of his body not torn open by a downward strike of claws. They were the same as Stiles’, two clean separate holes at the base of his ribs. The other two victims looked to be in a similar state. All three looked to have their chests ripped open, white bone glowing in the moonlight against congealed, dried blood. Only two of them, though, looked to have another matching injury, their left knees bent to point brutally at an unnatural angle.

It was all very uncreative. What, were they each supposed to give their own pre-prescribed injury to each victim? That didn’t sound savage, that sounded tactile. The giant beta was probably going to try and break his leg, the last meant to deliver the most atrocious harm; the one few would ever be able to survive for very long, if at all. That’s what he had to face next. The ferocity of the smallest betas attacks, the feel of his fingers and breath on Stiles’ body, filled him with the certainty that he was going into this to the death- whether his own or the wolf’s.

What was more; there in the dirty, a foot or so away from the disrespectful gravesite, a crude little bed was drawn in the dirty.

He held on to that little spark of faith.

*

The further west he walked the more familiar the forest became. It sounded silly, when all of the trees looked the same and there were barely any rocks in this part to recognize, but he knew where he was. On their hunt for the Garmr, they’d spent plenty of time wandering around the perimeter of their site, listening, looking, smelling. They had the traps and the bait, all they had to do was wait, but that had taken four days. When you spend four days in a forest that smells so strongly of sulfur, you have to focus on everything else around you to keep it off your mind.

The smell was mostly faded now, but still strong enough for Stiles’ human nose to pick up. He was glad for it, though it smelt bad, because it brought up memories of those four days and the warm nights sharing a tent with Derek (and Scott, but that wasn’t the point).

The point was, he knew where he was.

The point was, he hunted a Garmr with a pack of werewolves.

The point was, he knew better than to ever, ever let his guard down when hunting something so dangerous.

The point was, for someone who had watched him so closely, the small beta was still surprised when Stiles met his open hand with a fist full of keys.

The wolf jumped back with a snarl, his face less than human, his stance slumped and heaving and animalistic. The steady flow of epinephrine through his system kept his breathing even, his heart steady, his head clear and focused. He’d had the last two hours to give in to his panic, to face his fate and hold on to the fight he knew he had in him. His entire night had been a rollercoaster of fear and adrenaline and rage and numbness and now he was running on unbridled instinct.

The wolf moved first, Stiles was ready. He dived into the beta, the nylon of the collar gripped his good hand, prongs out. It was a small sacrifice he made, letting the wolf latch on with both hands ripping into his shoulder blade and hip, to get him close enough and still enough to allow Stiles to punch his fist into his stomach and bite down on the clicker he’d stored between in his mouth.

What he hadn’t considered, was the beta’s system seizing up, his claws squeezing until they gripped more bone than flesh.

The scream that ripped through Stiles was enough to drop the clicker to the ground and release the wolf. They both fell to the ground, panting and stunned. He didn’t know how, but Stiles recovered first. His control was shot; he could barely do more than flop like a fish on his right side and snatch up the collar with his good hand. The wolf was close enough and coming back to himself. Stiles shoved the gadget into the man’s mouth, punching straight past the fangs, slamming down with his fist until the wolf was more focused on trying to get a hold on the nylon than the human.

Stiles let himself fall to his back, the clicker somewhere below his tailbone and his wet sigh of relief drowned out by muffled screams.

 _Strike three, bitches_. A sound that should have been a manic giggle welled up inside him and came out like a pained gurgle.

He was dying now. He was pretty sure this is what dying felt like. The overall evaluation was _ouch_ with comments from the author claiming it to be _the worst experience in my young life_ and _definitely more painful than high school_. He couldn’t tell one injury from the next, didn’t bother feeling with his hand because he knew what he would find. The _how_ didn’t matter so much anymore. He was just happy Sara had made it and he’d taken down two werewolves on a full moon, literally _one handed._ The one regret swimming around his hazy mind was that he wouldn’t be able to brag about that to Derek…

“Well, I gotta say kid, you didn’t disappoint, now did you?”

The woman (Annie?) was standing over him, hands on her hips and appreciative expression on her face as she looked down at her long-dead frying beta. His death didn’t mean anything to her. They weren’t a _real_ pack. Pack meant family. He had more of a pack than she ever would, and he was a half dead human.

She knelt down at his left side and hefted him up by his armpits. He cried out at the pull of broken skin and bones but didn’t have it in him to fight back.

“Good thing I’ve got two new betas to replace the ones you killed.”

No preamble, no warning, she lifted him like a doll and bit into his uninjured shoulder.

He expected the bite to hurt more than _just a bite_. He expected to feel the magic of it pump sluggishly through his veins with his fading pulse. He expected it to burn from the inside out, to feel like poison.

It hurt less than his other injuries, and then it didn’t hurt at all.

When Scott had been bitten, he still had the teeth marks the next day, until the full moon rose. Stiles felt his close up; it felt like his skin was pulling and stitching itself together and cauterizing all at once. It _itched_ ; it itched so badly wherever his injuries were sealing he thought he could die just from the sensation alone. And he was ravenous.

Annie smiled at him, her eyes cold and her teeth sharp. Stiles felt nothing but overwhelming hate for her at that moment, as the pain became a memory became forgotten and he wanted to focus all of his rage on her, wanted to attack her like he’d attacked the beta and rip her throat out and feel her veins slipping between his teeth. But he couldn’t do that to her… he wanted to so badly, but he couldn’t. He wanted to kill something; he wanted to feel muscle shredding under his claws and he wan-

No, _no_ , he didn’t want that, he didn’t, he didn’t, _he didn’t!_

His head fell back and Stiles released a defiant howl into the sky.

Theory was nothing like practice.

Stiles stumbled back in the dead leaves, sticks and rocks scraping his palms and arms and back as he kicked himself through the trees. His veins felt like they were on fire, all pulling in different directions beneath his skin. He could feel every beat of his heart and every throb was telling him to _kill_. It wasn’t a slow burn. It didn’t take time to go through his system. It was instant and painful and terrifying and he didn’t feel like himself he just felt like _killing_ and he didn’t know how to make that desire go away he just wanted it to _go away_.

The alpha stood over his scrambling body, silhouetted by the full moon bright and white above her. She was walking at a leisurely pace, gaining at him despite how fast he felt he was clambering backwards, the way villains always seem to do in movies. Or maybe Stiles wasn’t moving all that fast. Weren’t werewolves supposed to be fast? Why couldn’t he get up and run? Why couldn’t he do _anything_? Why wouldn’t it stop hurting? Why couldn’t he just get up and _go_ and rip something to pieces?

The woman clicked her tongue at him. “Everyone said you were the smart one, Stiles. I thought you knew everything there was to know about being a werewolf? Don’t you want to come play with your alpha?”

Stiles meant to shoot her down, meant to yell something biting and sarcastic but all that came out was a chocked growl he couldn’t control. He rolled to the side and slammed his forehead into the closest tree, willing the blow to shock him back into his humanity, to stall the spread of whatever magic it was that turned a person. But as soon as the pain split through his skull, he could feel bone shifting back together and the skin knitting itself up. He slammed forward again, focusing this time on the pain and stars behind his eyes because he didn’t have an anchor and he hadn’t been prepared for how much he wanted to _hurt_ someone. How much he wanted to hurt Scott and Derek and Isaac, feel their skin tear beneath his claws and taste their blood on his tongue.

He slammed into the tree one last time when the pain had dissipated again, using it to clear his head because he _didn’t_ want to hurt them. Those weren’t his thoughts, he _didn’t_ , he _didn’t_.

“Aww, honey, no, you’ve got such a pretty face. Now look what you’ve done.” The alpha knelt down over Stiles’ sprawled legs and wiped at the blood that had trickled down from the closed wounds. “You know,” she said, licking the red stain from her thumb and giving Stiles a considering look. He met her eyes defiantly, claws biting into his palms deep as they could to give him something to focus on. “I thought it’d be more fun to turn you. Thought the others would be around to see their token human slip from their pack and kill with me. But you’re alone out here, aren’t you? They never found you. I wonder if they even tried.”

Stiles snorted derisively at her, the sting of his palms bringing a strange clarity to his blood thirsty thoughts. He reached back with his closed fists and pulled himself across the forest floor one last time, torn shirt catching on the roots of the tree. The alpha gave him a pitying look instead of following his slow retreat.

“Really, honey? Really? You know you can’t fight the call of your alpha.”

One more pull over the leaves and rocks and Stiles’ hand found the trip that just a few months ago, one laid down by himself. The alpha didn’t even have time to inhale for a howl before a wire snapped into place, cutting the skin of her neck like butter. He head fell with her body until they hit the ground and then rolled to Stiles’ feet.

“You’re not my alpha,” he growled. Not a mile away, he could hear the trampling footprints of the others chasing after his scent trail. He collapsed with relief, the sound of his real pack’s voices soothing him.

He didn’t have to wait more than a few seconds before someone was sliding behind him and Scott and Isaac were jumping over them to tackle the tall beta who’d snuck up. Derek pulled him up to sit back against his chest, his legs bracketing him, protecting him. He snatched Stiles’ hands up and manually pulled the claws out of his palms.

“Don’t use pain, don’t let that anchor you. Find something else, think of your father.”

Stiles obeyed, tried to picture his father making Sunday breakfast, but his thoughts could get past the smell of Derek, the sound of his voice, his heartbeat in Stiles’ ear, the feel of his lips against his temple. Clarity dawned on him slowly, his face coming back to normal when he hadn’t even known it had changed, his claws pulling back into his hands. He breathed in the scent of him, pictured his dad making breakfast, pictured Derek making breakfast, pictured the both of them in his kitchen, smelled home and pancakes and clung to the control the images gave him.

“Sara,” he panted, weirdly out of breath for doing nothing but pressing his face into the cool leather of Derek’s jacket. “She’s not… she doesn’t know how… Sara. _Sara_!” he shouted her name over the snarling sounds of an ending fight, hoping it was enough to draw her out of her hiding place. Derek tensing around him defensively clued him in to her arrival and Stiles followed the tilt of his jaw to see her creeping out of the shadows to their left. She was half crouched, ready to pounce or flee, her face wolfed out but her golden eyes alert.

Scott approached her slowly, human but covered in the blood of the nameless tall beta. Stiles watched the interaction with bated breath. She flinched away from Scott’s attempt to reach out to her but she didn’t run away or attack. Instead, she turned her eyes to Stiles.

“ _I congratulate you_ ,” she said in her exaggerated Russian accent, the words slurred behind a mouthful of fangs. “ _You have won the game_.”

Stiles chuckled and relaxed. Derek wrapped his arms around his middle and blocked him from the cold. “Something, something, something, slept in a better bed,” he responded.

“You need to read more,” she scolded. Stiles flipped her off.

 

**Author's Note:**

> spoilery bits about possible triggering events
> 
> a werewolf attempts to rape stiles, doesn't get past an unsuccessful attempt to penetrate him with his fingers  
> stiles is turned against his against his will while he is not in a state to be able to defend himself


End file.
